The Yellow Claw

S >> Sax Rohmer >> The Yellow Claw


"Not a stray cat," said Dunbar with emphasis, "can approach Limehouse
Causeway or Pennyfields, or any of the environs of the place, to-morrow
night after ten o'clock, without the fact being reported to me! You
will know at the moment that you step from the limousine that a cyclist
scout, carefully concealed, is close at your heels with a whole troup to
follow; and if, as you suspect, the den adjoins the river bank, a police
cutter will be lying at the nearest available point."

"Eh bien!" said M. Max; then, turning to Denise Ryland and Dr. Cumberly,
and shrugging his shoulders: "you see, frightful as your suspense must
be, to make any foolish arrests to-night, to move in this matter at all
to-night--would be a case of more haste and less speed"...

"But," groaned Cumberly, "is Helen to lie in that foul, unspeakable den
until the small hours of to-morrow morning? Good God! they may"...

"There is one little point," interrupted M. Max with upraised hand,
"which makes it impossible that we should move to-night--quite apart
from the advisability of such a movement. We do not know exactly where
this place is situated. What can we do?"

He shrugged his shoulders, and, with raised eyebrows, stared at Dr.
Cumberly.

"It is fairly evident," replied the other slowly, and with a repetition
of the weary upraising of his hand to his head, "it is fairly evident
that the garage used by the man Gianapolis must be very near to--most
probably adjoining--the entrance to this place of which you speak."

"Quite true," agreed the Frenchman. "But these are clever, these people
of Mr. King. They are Chinese, remember, and the Chinese--ah, I know
it!--are the most mysterious and most cunning people in the world.
The entrance to the cave of black and gold will not be as wide as a
cathedral door. A thousand men might search this garage, which, as
Detective Sowerby" (he clapped the latter on the shoulder) "informed me
this afternoon, is situated in Wharf-End Lane--all day and all night,
and become none the wiser. To-morrow evening"--he lowered his voice--"I
myself, shall be not outside, but inside that secret place; I shall
be the concierge for one night--Eh bien, that concierge will admit the
policeman!"

A groan issued from Dr. Cumberly's lips; and M. Max, with ready
sympathy, crossed the room and placed his hands upon the physician's
shoulders, looking steadfastly into his eyes.

"I understand, Dr. Cumberly," he said, and his voice was caressing as
a woman's. "Pardieu! I understand. To wait is agony; but you, who are
a physician, know that to wait sometimes is necessary. Have courage, my
friend, have courage!"




XXXVII

THE WHISTLE


Luke Soames, buttoning up his black coat, stood in the darkness,
listening.

His constitutional distaste for leaping blindfolded had been over-ridden
by circumstance. He felt himself to be a puppet of Fate, and he drifted
with the tide because he lacked the strength to swim against it. That
will-o'-the-wisp sense of security which had cheered him when first he
had realized how much he owed to the protective wings of Mr. King had
been rudely extinguished upon the very day of its birth; he had learnt
that Mr. King was a sinister protector; and almost hourly he lived again
through the events of that night when, all unwittingly, he had become a
witness of strange happenings in the catacombs.

Soames had counted himself a lost man that night; the only point which
he had considered debatable was whether he should be strangled or
poisoned. That his employers were determined upon his death, he was
assured; yet he had lived through the night, had learnt from his watch
that the morning was arrived... and had seen the flecks at the roots of
his dyed hair, blanched by the terrors of that vigil--of that watching,
from moment to moment, for the second coming of Ho-Pin.

Yes, the morning had dawned, and with it a faint courage. He had shaved
and prepared himself for his singular duties, and Said had brought
him his breakfast as usual. The day had passed uneventfully, and once,
meeting Ho-Pin, he had found himself greeted with the same mirthless
smile but with no menace. Perhaps they had believed his story, or had
disbelieved it but realized that he was too closely bound to them to be
dangerous.

Then his mind had reverted to the conversation overheard in the
music-hall. Should he seek to curry favor with his employers by
acquainting them with the fact that, contrary to Gianapolis' assertion,
an important clue had fallen into the hands of the police? Did they
know this already? So profound was his belief in the omniscience of
the invisible Mr. King that he could not believe that Power ignorant of
anything appertaining to himself.

Yet it was possible that those in the catacombs were unaware how
Scotland Yard, night and day, quested for Mr. King. The papers made no
mention of it; but then the papers made no mention of another fact--the
absence of Mrs. Leroux. Now that he was no longer panic-ridden, he
could mentally reconstruct that scene of horror, could hear again,
imaginatively, the shrieks of the maltreated woman. Perhaps this same
active imagination of his was playing him tricks, but, her voice...
Always he preferred to dismiss these ideas.

He feared Ho-Pin in the same way that an average man fears a tarantula,
and he was only too happy to avoid the ever smiling Chinaman; so that
the days passed on, and, finding himself unmolested and the affairs of
the catacombs proceeding apparently as usual, he kept his information to
himself, uncertain if he shared it with his employers or otherwise, but
hesitating to put the matter to the test--always fearful to approach
Ho-Pin, the beetlesque.

But this could not continue indefinitely; at least he must speak
to Ho-Pin in order to obtain leave of absence. For, since that
unforgettable night, he had lived the life of a cave-man indeed, and
now began to pine for the wider vault of heaven. Meeting the impassive
Chinaman in the corridor one morning, on his way to valet one of the
living dead, Soames ventured to stop him.

"Excuse me, sir," he said, confusedly, "but would there be any objection
to my going out on Friday evening for an hour?"

"Not at all, Soames," replied Ho-Pin, with his mirthless smile: "you may
go at six, wreturn at ten."

Ho-Pin passed on.

Soames heaved a gentle sigh of relief. The painful incident was
forgotten, then. He hurried into the room, the door of which Said was
holding open, quite eager for his unsavory work.

In crossing its threshold, he crossed out of his new peace into a mental
turmoil greater in its complexities than any he yet had known; he met M.
Gaston Max, and his vague doubts respecting the omniscience of Mr. King
were suddenly reinforced.

Soames' perturbation was so great on that occasion that he feared it
must unfailingly be noticed. He realized that now he was definitely in
communication with the enemies of Mr. King! Ah; but Mr. King did not
know how formidable was the armament of those enemies! He (Soames) had
overrated Mr. King; and because that invisible being could inspire Fear
in an inconceivable degree, he had thought him all-powerful. Now, he
realized that Mr. King was unaware of the existence of at least one clue
held by the police; was unaware that his name was associated with the
Palace Mansions murder.

The catacombs of Ho-Pin were a sinking ship, and Soames was first of the
rats to leave.

He kept his appointment at the "Three Nuns" as has appeared; he accepted
the blood-money that was offered him, and he returned to the garage
adjoining Kan-Suh Concessions, that night, hugging in his bosom a
leather case containing implements by means whereof his new accomplice
designed to admit the police to the cave of the golden dragon.

Also, in the pocket of his overcoat, he had a neat Browning pistol; and
when the door at the back of the garage was opened for him by Said, he
found that the touch of this little weapon sent a thrill of assurance
through him, and he began to conceive a sentiment for the unknown
investigator to whom he was bound, akin to that which formerly he had
cherished for Mr. King!

Now the time was come.

The people of the catacombs acquired a super-sensitive power of hearing,
and Soames was able at this time to detect, as he sat or lay in his own
room, the movements of persons in the corridor outside and even in the
cave of the golden dragon. That mysterious trap in the wall gave him
many qualms, and to-night he had glanced at it a thousand times. He held
the pistol in his hand, and buttoned up within his coat was the leather
case. Only remained the opening of his door in order to learn if the
lights were extinguished in the corridor.

He did not anticipate any serious difficulty, provided he could overcome
his constitutional nervousness. In his waistcoat pocket was a brand new
Yale key which, his latest employer had assured him, fitted the lock
of the end door of Block A. The door between the cave of the dragon
and Block A was never locked, so far as Soames was aware, nor was that
opening from the corridor in which his own room was situated. Therefore,
only a few moments--fearful moments, certainly--need intervene, ere
he should have a companion; and within a few minutes of that time, the
police--his friends!--would be there to protect him! He recognized that
the law, after all, was omnipotent, and of all masters was the master to
be served.

There was no light in the corridor. Leaving his door ajar, he tiptoed
cautiously along toward the cave. Assuring himself once again that the
pistol lay in his pocket, he fumbled for the lever which opened the
door, found it, depressed it, and stepped quietly forward in his
slippered feet.

The unmistakable odor of the place assailed his nostrils. All was in
darkness, and absolute silence prevailed. He had a rough idea of the
positions of the various little tables, and he stepped cautiously
in order to skirt them; but evidently he had made a miscalculation.
Something caught his foot, and with a muffled thud he sprawled upon the
floor, barely missing one of the tables which he had been at such pains
to avoid.

Trembling like a man with an ague, he lay there, breathing in short,
staccato breaths, and clutching the pistol in his pocket. Certainly he
had made no great noise, but...

Nothing stirred.

Soames summoned up courage to rise and to approach again the door of
Block A. Without further mishap he reached it, opened it, and entered
the blackness of the corridor. He could make no mistake in regard to
the door, for it was the end one. He stole quietly along, his fingers
touching the matting, until he came in contact with the corner angle;
then, feeling along from the wall until he touched the strip of bamboo
which marked the end of the door, he probed about gently with the key;
for he knew to within an inch or so where the keyhole was situated.

Ah! he had it! His hand trembling slightly, he sought to insert the key
in the lock. It defied his efforts. He felt it gently with the fingers
of his left hand, thinking that he might have been endeavoring to
insert the key with the irregular edge downward, and not uppermost; but
no--such was not the case.

Again he tried, and with no better result. His nerves were threatening
to overcome him, now; he had not counted upon any such hitch as this:
but fear sharpened his wits. He recollected the fall which he had
sustained, and how he had been precipitated upon the polished floor,
outside.

Could he have mistaken his direction? Was it not possible that owing to
his momentary panic, he had arisen, facing not the door at the foot of
the steps, as he had supposed, but that by which a moment earlier he had
entered the cave of the golden dragon?

Desperation was with him now; he was gone too far to draw back. Trailing
his fingers along the matting covering of the wall, he retraced his
steps, came to the open door, and reentered the apartment of the dragon.
He complimented himself, fearfully, upon his own address, for he was
inspired with an idea whereby he might determine his position. Picking
his way among the little tables and the silken ottomans, he groped about
with his hands in the impenetrable darkness for the pedestal supporting
the dragon. At last his fingers touched the ivory. He slid them
downward, feeling for the great vase of poppies which always stood
before the golden image....

The vase was on the LEFT and not on the RIGHT of the pedestal. His
theory was correct; he had been groping in the mysterious precincts of
that Block B which he had never entered, which he had never seen any one
else enter, and from whence he had never known any one to emerge! It
was the fall that had confused him; now, he took his bearings anew, bent
down to feel for any tables that might lie in his path, and crept across
the apartment toward the door which he sought.

Ah! this time there could be no mistake! He depressed the lever handle,
and, as the door swung open before him, crept furtively into the
corridor.

Repeating the process whereby he had determined the position of the end
door, he fumbled once again for the keyhole. He found it with even less
difficulty than he had experienced in the wrong corridor, inserted the
key in the lock, and with intense satisfaction felt it slip into place.

He inhaled a long breath of the lifeless air, turned the key, and threw
the door open. One step forward he took...

A whistle (God! he knew it!) a low, minor whistle, wavered through the
stillness. He was enveloped, mantled, choked, by the perfume of ROSES!

The door, which, although it had opened easily, had seemed to be a
remarkably heavy one, swung to behind him; he heard the click of the
lock. Like a trapped animal, he turned, leaped back, and found his
quivering hands in contact with books--books--books...

A lamp lighted up in the center of the room.

Soames turned and stood pressed closely against the book-shelves,
against the book-shelves which magically had grown up in front of the
door by which he had entered. He was in the place of books and roses--in
the haunt of MR. KING!

A great clarity of mind came to him, as it comes to a drowning man; he
knew that those endless passages, through which once he had been led
in darkness, did not exist, that he had been deceived, had been guided
along the same corridor again and again; he knew that this room of roses
did not lie at the heart of a labyrinth, but almost adjoined the cave of
the golden dragon.

He knew that he was a poor, blind fool; that his plotting had been
known to those whom he had thought to betray; that the new key which
had opened a way into this place of dread was not the key which his
accomplice had given him. He knew that that upon which he had tripped at
the outset of his journey had been set in his path by cunning design, in
order that the fall might confuse his sense of direction. He knew that
the great vase of poppies had been moved, that night....

God! his brain became a seething furnace.

There, before him, upstood the sandalwood screen, with one corner of the
table projecting beyond it. Nothing of life was visible in the perfumed
place, where deathly silence prevailed....

No lion has greater courage than a cornered rat. Soames plucked the
pistol from his pocket and fired at the screen--ONCE!--TWICE!

He heard the muffled report, saw the flash of the little weapon, saw
the two holes in the carven woodwork, and gained a greater, hysterical
courage--the courage of a coward's desperation.

Immediately before him was a little ebony table, bearing a silver bowl,
laden to the brim with sulphur-colored roses. He overturned the table
with his foot, laughing wildly. In three strides he leapt across the
room, grasped the sandalwood screen, and hurled it to the floor....

In the instant of its fall, he became as Lot's wife. The pistol dropped
from his nerveless grasp, thudding gently on the carpet, and, with his
fingers crooked paralytically, he stood swaying... and looking into the
face of MR. KING!

Soames' body already was as rigid as it would be in death; his mind was
numbed--useless. But his outraged soul forced utterance from the lips of
the man.

A scream, a scream to have made the angels shudder, to have inspired
pity in the devils of Hell, burst from him. Two yellow hands leaped at
his throat....




XXXVIII

THE SECRET TRAPS


Gaston Max, from his silken bed in the catacombs of Ho-Pin, watched the
hand of his watch which lay upon the little table beside him. Already it
was past two o'clock, and no sign had come from Soames; a hundred times
his imagination had almost tricked him into believing that the door was
opening; but always the idea had been illusory and due to the purple
shadow of the lamp-shade which overcast that side of the room and the
door.

He had experienced no difficulty in arranging with Gianapolis to occupy
the same room as formerly; and, close student of human nature though he
was, he had been unable to detect in the Greek's manner, when they
had met that night, the slightest restraint, the slightest evidence of
uneasiness. His reception by Ho-Pin had varied scarce one iota from that
accorded him on his first visit to the cave of the golden dragon. The
immobile Egyptian had brought him the opium, and had departed silently
as before. On this occasion, the trap above the bed had not been opened.
But hour after hour had passed, uneventfully, silently, in that still,
suffocating room....

A key in the lock!--yes, a key was being inserted in the lock! He
must take no unnecessary risks; it might be another than Soames. He
waited--the faint sound of fumbling ceased. Still, he waited, listening
intently.

Half-past-two. If it had been Soames, why had he withdrawn? M. Max arose
noiselessly and looked about him. He was undecided what to do, when...

Two shots, followed by a most appalling shriek--the more frightful
because it was muffled; the shriek of a man in extremis, of one who
stands upon the brink of Eternity, brought him up rigid, tense,
with fists clenched, with eyes glaring; wrought within this fearless
investigator an emotion akin to terror.

Just that one gruesome cry there was and silence again.

What did it mean?

M. Max began hastily to dress. He discovered, in endeavoring to fasten
his collar, that his skin was wet with cold perspiration.

"Pardieu!" he said, twisting his mouth into that wry smile, "I know,
now, the meaning of fright!"

He was ever glancing toward the door, not hopefully as hitherto, but
apprehensively, fearfully.

That shriek in the night might portend merely the delirium of some other
occupant of the catacombs; but the shots...

"It was SOAMES!" he whispered aloud; "I have risked too much; I am fast
in the rat-trap!"

He looked about him for a possible weapon. The time for inactivity was
past. It would be horrible to die in that reeking place, whilst outside,
it might be, immediately above his head, Dunbar and the others waited
and watched.

The construction of the metal bunk attracted his attention. As in the
case of steamer bunks one of the rails--that nearer to the door--was
detachable in order to facilitate the making of the bed. Rapidly,
nervously, he unscrewed it; but the hinges were riveted to the main
structure, and after a brief examination he shrugged his shoulders
despairingly. Then, he recollected that in the adjoining bathroom there
was a metal towel rail, nickeled, and with a heavy knock at either end,
attached by two brackets to the wall.

He ran into the inner room and eagerly examined these fastenings. They
were attached by small steel screws. In an instant he was at work with
the blade of his pocket-knife. Six screws in all there were to be dealt
with, three at either end. The fifth snapped the blade and he uttered an
exclamation of dismay. But the shortened implement proved to be an even
better screw-driver than the original blade, and half a minute later he
found himself in possession of a club such as would have delighted the
soul of Hercules.

He managed to unscrew one of the knobs, and thus to slide off from the
bar the bracket attachments; then, replacing the knob, he weighed the
bar in his hand, appreciatively. His mind now was wholly composed, and
his course determined. He crossed the little room and rapped loudly upon
the door.

The rapping sounded muffled and dim in that sound-proof place. Nothing
happened, and thrice he repeated the rapping with like negative results.
But he had learnt something: the door was a very heavy one.

He made a note of the circumstance, although it did not interfere with
the plan which he had in mind. Wheeling the armchair up beside the bed,
he mounted upon its two arms and, ONCE--TWICE--THRICE--crashed the knob
of the iron bar against that part of the wall which concealed the trap.

Here the result was immediate. At every blow of the bar the trap
behind yielded. A fourth blow sent the knob crashing through the gauze
material, and far out into some dark place beyond. There was a sound as
of a number of books falling.

He had burst the trap.

Up on the back of the chair he mounted, resting his bar against the
wall, and began in feverish haste to tear away the gauze concealing the
rectangular opening.

An almost overpowering perfume of roses was wafted into his face. In
front of him was blackness.

Having torn away all the gauze, he learned that the opening was some two
feet long by one foot high. Resting the bar across the ledge he
extended his head and shoulders forward through this opening into the
rose-scented place beyond, and without any great effort drew himself up
with his hands, so that, provided he could find some support upon
the other side, it would be a simple matter to draw himself through
entirely.

He felt about with his fingers, right and left, and in doing so
disturbed another row of books, which fell upon the floor beneath him.
He had apparently come out in the middle of a large book-shelf. To
the left of him projected the paper-covered door of the trap, at right
angles; above and below were book-laden shelves, and on the right there
had been other books, until his questing fingers had disturbed them.

M. Max, despite his weight, was an agile man. Clutching the shelf
beneath, he worked his way along to the right, gradually creeping
further and further into the darkened room, until at last he could draw
his feet through the opening and crouch sideways upon the shelf.

He lowered his left foot, sought for and found another shelf beneath,
and descended as by a ladder to the thickly carpeted floor. Grasping the
end of the bar, he pulled that weapon down; then he twisted the button
which converted his timepiece into an electric lantern, and, holding the
bar in one tensely quivering hand, looked rapidly about him.

This was a library; a small library, with bowls of roses set upon
tables, shelves, in gaps between the books, and one lying overturned
upon the floor. Although it was almost drowned by their overpowering
perfume, he detected a faint smell of powder. In one corner stood
a large writing-table with papers strewn carelessly upon it. Its
appointments were markedly Chinese in character, from the singular, gold
inkwell to the jade paperweight; markedly Chinese--and--FEMININE. A very
handsome screen lay upon the floor in front of this table, and the rich
carpet he noted to be disordered as if a struggle had taken place upon
it. But, most singular circumstance of all, and most disturbing... there
was no door to this room!

For a moment he failed to appreciate the entire significance of this.
A secret room difficult to enter he could comprehend, but a secret room
difficult to QUIT passed his comprehension completely. Moreover, he was
no better off for his exploit.

Three minutes sufficed him in which to examine the shelves covering the
four walls of the room from floor to ceiling. None of the books were
dummies, and slowly the fact began to dawn upon his mind that what at
first he had assumed to be a rather simple device, was, in truth, almost
incomprehensible.

For how, in the name of Sanity, did the occupant of this room--and
obviously it was occupied at times--enter and leave it?

"Ah!" he muttered, shining the light upon a row of yellow-bound volumes
from which he had commenced his tour of inspection and to which that
tour had now led him back, "it is uncanny--this!"

He glanced back at the rectangular patch of light which marked the trap
whereby he had entered this supernormal room. It was situated close to
one corner of the library, and, acting upon an idea which came to him
(any idea was better than none) he proceeded to throw down the books
occupying the corresponding position at the other end of the shelf.

A second trap was revealed, identical with that through which he had
entered!

It was fastened with a neat brass bolt; and, standing upon one of the
little Persian tables--from which he removed a silver bowl of roses--he
opened this trap and looked into the lighted room beyond. He saw an
apartment almost identical with that which he himself recently had
quitted; but in one particular it differed. It was occupied... AND BY A
WOMAN!